The things I dislike most, when visiting my home state of California, are the lawnmowers. I don’t mind the crowds. I feel at home in a solid bank of unmoving cars on the 405 freeway. But I cannot abide the lawnmowers, who drone on at all hours, every day of the week, every week of the year. All of this incessant noise is because lawns keep growing in California, the whole time. They never stop. Thus, the need for mowing and for people to push the mowers around every suburban yard forever. The 8 AM ripping sound that shreds a peaceful morning in order to bring a mower to life makes me want to throw something.
It is startlingly quiet in Montana, especially now. Mid-February is when we have been quiet for a while, in fact. Everything is sleeping. I don’t see my backyard squirrel buddies skipping along the fence. I haven’t seen the pair of doves who squeeze together atop the telephone pole in months. The trees are still and silent. The sound of feet crunching snow is all there is. We stay like this for about six months — sometimes seven, sometimes eight — in a great and sighing pause.
I don’t think I would have learned about rest otherwise. Until we moved, I’d never seen a landscape bow to a natural rhythm in such a profound way. Our first winter, like I said, it startled me. My first thought, as snow set in and our community started tucking in, was, “What is there to do? What will we do with all this time?” My body felt twitchy and anxious, coming awkwardly off my addiction to activity. I was far more concerned with the doing than the being. It was a rough detox, for sure. But there were no lawnmowers. Not for many months.
We’ve been here almost nine years now. And I have grown to feel a deep, reverberating oneness with the movement from activity to rest, light to dark, clamor to silence. My spirit now craves the changes of season in a way that feels like primal validation: we were made for this. We were not made for full throttle, unbroken energy and forward movement. Our tanks are small, our bodies finite. Our lives are fragile. Even the bears, the strongest and sturdiest animals in the forest, go to sleep for months.
Winter is the context where God schools me in rest. As I grip my steering wheel and slip around town on icy streets, he shows me how to come to a slow stop. Everything else prepares and settles in for hibernation. Why can’t I? What am I afraid of? What is left of me when I surrendered to silence, when I am left alone with myself and the falling snow?
These are the questions you have to face when considering a practice of Sabbath. Why can’t we seem to stop ourselves, really ever? What fears are buried deep, frozen beneath the addiction to activity? And why do we struggle to identify as created beings, like the squirrels and the trees — why do we fight our design that demands we periodically align with the order of nature and choose rest?
Well, if you live in a sunny spot, maybe it’s all the godforsaken lawnmowers. Admittedly, there are microcultures within which it is harder to create a rhythm of rest. But nothing changes how much we need one.
It was, after all, out of Love that God rested. After creating the world, he didn’t need to stop, of course. He wasn’t tired. He was showing us how to be. The story goes that he created man and woman on the sixth day, the last day of creation. That means their first day of life was one of leisure, of rest. It was the first priority, the most important thing they could do as humans. And God was there, with them, hanging out.
I know you know you need to slow down. The pace is taking a toll on everything, including our physical health. It’s because we were not made for constant busyness. Let the season outside your window (or the photos of friends who live in snowy places) be a teacher, and consider what it would take to start stopping.
If you want to learn more about practicing rest, I enjoyed these resources.
Breathe: Making Room for Sabbath by Pricilla Shirer. This is a short Bible study series that would be great to go through with a small group of friends. Accompanying videos can be found online.
The Sabbath by Rabbi Heschel. This is a more intellectual/theological read and I loved it so much.
Lastly, I’ll be sending out my own, personalized Sabbath guide next week as part of the Small Affairs February content for paid subscribers. You can upgrade through this button below.
make this.
Italian Sausage & Tortellini Soup
This is all I need to say about this soup: it is a perfectly cozy, wintery dinner, and will double to feed a whole lot of people if need be. This version feeds 6. Do not be deterred by the ingredient list. It comes together in no time. No skills are required except chopping and stirring. Also, this soup is even better and richer the next day.
Ingredients
1 lb sweet Italian sausage, ground or casings removed
1 C chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 C beef stock
2 C chopped tomatoes
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 large zucchini, sliced into half moons
1 large carrot, thinly sliced
1/2 C dry red wine
2 T dried basil
2 T dried oregano
salt & pepper
1 small package of fresh cheese tortellini
Parmesan cheese (topping)
Step 1: Sauté sausage in heavy pot or Dutch oven, crumbling, until cooked through, about 10 min. Transfer to a bowl. Pour off all but 1 T oil.
Step 2: Add onion and garlic, sauté for 5 min. until translucent. Add the sausage back in, and EVERYTHING ELSE but the tortellini and cheese. Simmer until veggies are tender, about 40 minutes.
Step 3: Add tortellini and cook about 8 min. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls and top with parmesan.
install this.
Lockscreen graphics to remind you to rest
Download one of these for your cellphone lockscreen so you’ll be reminded to incorporate rest into your week. On an iPhone, hold your thumb down on the image until the options pop up, select “add to photos,” and then go to “settings” and then '“wallpaper” to select it as your lockscreen. On any other phone, your guess is as good as mine. Sorry.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this issue of Small Affairs. If so, share it with a friend who may need some encouragement this week. Better yet, gift them a subscription so they’ll get the Sabbath guide. At $5/month, that is the price of a fancy coffee.
I’ll be hibernating this week, as we have a lot of snow in the forecast. I grumble about it, but then remember to soak up the silence and the sheer beauty of the landscape. I am learning to look up, learning from the earth and the way it survives with such grace. May we all keep crunching through life with grace.
You are the beloved,
Leslie
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Hilarious comparison using lawnmowers. So genius. Lol